Asleep (Doctor Who)
by hiddlesticks
Summary: Little Alice Cradle's dreams are plagued by horrific noises coming from the walls of Crowley Orphanage. What happens when a mad man in navy blue box shows up and promises to help her?
1. Chapter 1

My name is Alice, Alice Cradle, and when I was a little girl I met this man called The Doctor. He was dressed all funny with a burgundy bow-tie and a tweed jacket. He told about how he fought monsters in outer space and I remember how amazingly cool I thought he was.

It was almost midnight and I was supposed to be asleep in what was supposed to be my bed but really it was just a tattered mattress with a thin cotton blanket. I had trouble sleeping almost every night because I used to hear things. Granted, I was in an orphanage and the nurses who worked there chatted a lot and gossiped about one another quite loudly but these noises I was hearing, they weren't human. They were something else and they got louder with each night that passed.

The noises were especially loud that particular night, I was astonished that every other child and adult in that building were seemingly oblivious either that or I remember thinking I was probably mentally insane.

I closed my eyes tightly and whispered to the wind, wishing for a hero and just like that he arrived, right on time.

A faint light flashed in the empty room across the hall and slowly I hopped up from my bed, careful not to make a sound as I tiptoed down the corridor past the conversing nurses.

I pushed the door open a tad more, peeping through the small crack. The flashing colours had ceased and it's place sat a dark blue police box. In that moment something came over me, prehaps it was curiosity or prehaps it was desperation, but I rushed into the room and knocked on hard navy door. "Hello?"

"Good Evening, ma'am, sorry i'm la-ah, oh..." a man stepped out from the box, the huge smile disappearing from his face when he realised where he was, "...This isn't Buckingham Palace, is it?"

I shook my head, "Are you the police? Have you come to help me?"

"No, i'm the Doctor. I suppose you could say i'm Time and Space's answer to a policeman but i'd rather be called the Doctor" he let out a short laugh before looking at me with a confused expression, "Now, to more important things. What's a little girl like you doing in such a dismal place, not exactly fun, is it?"

"This is Crowley Orphanage, it's my home" I answered, not liking to admit it. I always got teased at school for it. I was the girl who nobody wanted, my parents didn't want me, the rest of the children didn't want to know me. I was a nobody, "If you're not a policeman then what do you do? I've never met any doctors like you before"

"I do save lives, I just save them by fighting evil space monsters. Not to blow my own trumpet, but if it weren't for me then this Earth would probably be crawling with Daleks, Cybermen and all sorts of weird alieny things" he frowned, "What's your name?"

"Alice, Alice Cradle" I said in the most confident voice I could muster.

"Well, Alice, you're a long way from Wonderland, aren't you?" he grinned before crouching down to my level of height, "So, why were you looking for help?"

I shifted uncomfortably, I had been doing so well ignoring the noises whilst talking to the Doctor but now my ears had focused on them once again. The sound was making stressed and I didn't like it, it put on edge all the time and it was getting worse. "Hmm..that's why. You hear it too?" he questioned, before jumping up to his normal height and pausing, "Strange isn't it?"

"I have trouble sleeping at night, will you be able to make it stop?"

"Certainly! Now, i'll be right back, Alice, you stay put"

Furrowing my eyebrows, I stared at him with confusion, "Where are you going?"

"Just to cancel tea with the Queen. I'll be no more than five minutes" the Doctor grinned before disappearing into his blue wooden box. It's silhouette faded a few times before vanishing, just like the mysterious man that inhabited it and leaving a cool breeze in the air.

Gone. He was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Eleven years later_**

He never came back. I waited. Eleven years, I waited for that raggedy man and his bright blue box to come and whisk me away to see the stars and all the weird space monsters he battled.

"Nurse Alice?"

"Oh sorry, Tim! I must've zoned out, is time for you to sleep?" I asked, Tim replying with a tired nod as he laid back in his small bed.

He looked up, staring at me widely, "Will you tell me a story, Alice? I love your stories so much!"

"Ok then, but you better go to sleep straight after, no causing trouble!" I knew how he felt and I didn't blame him for kicking a fuss when bedtime came. Getting any slumber in a lonely place like this was hard enough for me, not to mention the disturbing night noises that plagued me and still do on the rarest of occasions. "There's this man who lives in a blue space box and all he does, all day, everyday, is protect all the children on the Earth. You see, somewhere beyond the stars there are nasty creatures who try to harm us because they want this planet all to themselves. But, do you know who saves us?"

"Superman!"

"No, not quite" I knew that getting him into superheroes was a bad idea, he never shuts up about them now. "The Doctor saves us, he's Space and Time's answer to Superman. I bet he's out there right now defeating some monsters!"

Tim scoffed, closing his eyes and mumbling in a half asleep state, "Superman's still my favourite"

I chuckled, taking my time to observe the sleeping child in his cold, orphan bed. I was just like him not too long ago, immersing myself in dreams and stories, finding happiness in a hero. I guess I still am like Timothy. I'm still alone, still hoping that one day my superhero will come for me and we'll go on an adventure. Five minutes. Eleven years. Heck, it could be a hundred years later and i'll still be silently praying my mad man in a box would return to show me the stars.

A loud knock on the door startled me, bringing me back into my empty reality. "Coming!"

"Hello there"

I was face to face with him, staring into those timeless pale green eyes. He hadn't changed at all, there wasn't wrinkle on his face. He looked exactly like he did eleven years ago. "Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for a little girl about this tall" he gestured with his hands, "with pretty brown hair, her name's Alice Cradle. I told her i'd be back"

"Sorry but there's nobody by that name here, never has been"

"No..no. There must be, she heard these noises and I told her i'd help" the Doctor frantically shook his head with disbelief before something caught his eye and he stopped, straightening up, "Hang on a minute... Your badge! Why does it say Alice Cradle on your badge if she doesn't exist?"

Oh. "Sheer coincidence?" I mumbled innocently before giving up the charade, "Fine! I'm her, whoop-de-doo, you've found me! Now off you pop into that blue box of yours, i'm sure you've probably got space aliens to thrash"

He had a dumbfounded expression on his face, almost as if he hadn't grasped the fact that he'd been more than a five minute trip to Buckingham Palace, "But you were a little girl..."

"And you said five minutes!"

I placed my hand on my hip, watching as the Doctor attempted to decipher the whole matter like it was a complex equation. He tapped himself on the head, "I've done it again, haven't I? Oh well, i'm here now and I can solve those noisy neighbours of yours!"

"No need, they've stopped" I lied badly. I don't know what I was doing nor thinking. Here was this man who travelled in what appeared to be a time machine and takes on aliens throughout the Universe and there I was denying his aid to help me and my monsters.

"Oh, Alice, you've forgotten, haven't you?" he smiled knowingly, "I can hear them too. Now, are you going to let me in?"


End file.
